The memory steadied.
I didn't land in a hellscape. I was standing on the roof of a glittering black skyscraper, looking out over a skyline that matched anything on Earth and then went past it.
The Abyss.
It wasn't a pit of fire. It was a vast, advanced city under a night that never ended. Holographic billboards the size of hills floated in the air, selling cybernetics, weapon modifications and Miasma-laced energy drinks. Transport ships threaded through marked sky-lanes, their thrusters leaving neon-blue trails under the low clouds.
Below me the city hummed with power. Real, industrial power. Miasma wasn't a fog here. It was a resource, piped through huge conduits like oil or mana, running the machines that kept this whole civilisation alive.
"Civilisation," I murmured. Rain began to fall, an acid, industrial rain that hissed on the metal under my boots.
This was the memory Akasha wanted me to see. The beginning of the monster.
